David Ayer’s “The Tax Collector” is about the most dangerous job in East L.A: being a tax collector in the gangster world. In a nutshell, the two main characters in Ayer’s latest action movie have to go from gang to gang in Los Angeles to collect “taxes” for business. Of course, to hit up these violent hotbeds monthly for late payments, you need to have balls of steel, and who better to play such a role than the ‘Honey Boy’ himself, Shia LaBeouf.
I mean, listen, sometimes these gangsters will be short on money and the Tax Collector, known in the film as “The Devil,” will have to lay the heat on their ass in creatively nasty ways. At least, that’s what the newly-released trailer seems to indicate.
LaBoeuf’s Creeper collects his cut from the profits of local gangs’ illicit dealings. However, problems arise when an old rival returns to Los Angeles from Mexico, Creeper’s “tax” business is upended, and people are threatened. Fortunately, Creeper and his partner David (Bobby Soto) are ride-or-die types who won’t take any bull from swinging-dick hoodlums.
Is Shia playing a Mexican here? Or is this just cultural appropriation? Either way, this movie looks amusingly watchable. Ayer, not one to necessarily switch it up from movie to movie, is truly in his comfort zone here, as you can see from the trailer that has shades of his other films, which include “Training Day,” “Street Kings,” “End of Watch,” and “Sabotage.” What can I say? The guy loves both violence and Los Angeles.
“The Tax Collector” is set to arrive in theaters and VOD on August 7.